


A Twisty Corkscrew

by dragonyfox



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: For Want of a Nail, Gen, Severus Snape Has a Heart, Slytherin Harry Potter, probably
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 02:09:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20520218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonyfox/pseuds/dragonyfox
Summary: There are many universes in which one Harry James Potter discovers something or another, and things turn out vastly differently for him. Sometimes he finds a long-lost family member and they steal him away from the Dursleys, or learns that a professor of his is his birth father and that fact was hidden from them both by his mother, or he learns he can talk to snakes at a young age and they teach him things.In this one, he’s given a book.





	1. Prologue: The Book

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not going to write any more fic until A Hound is completed, I said. I have an original novel to finish, I said. 
> 
> And yet here I am. I just read Going Postal and I searched and searched for any fic with the same plot, and upon finding nothing, I caved. I'm weak. 
> 
> Please don't expect regular updates. I'm finishing my last year of college, halfway through finishing and editing a novel, and an adult with an irritatingly busy life, besides. This is purely for fun, okay?

There are many universes in which one Harry James Potter discovers something or another, and things turn out vastly differently for him. Sometimes he finds a long-lost family member and they steal him away from the Dursleys, or learns that a professor of his is his birth father and that fact was hidden from them both by his mother, or he learns he can talk to snakes at a young age and they teach him things.

In this one, he’s given a book.

.

Ms. Mariette Jones knew an abused child when she saw one. It was clear in the hunch of his shoulders, in the ill-fitting and ragged clothes, and in the break in the nose of his glasses. She also knew to stop trying things the legal way when over three dozen attempts to have him removed from a terrible family had failed. Still, she knew she had to do something, and as she stood in front of her book shelf at home, thinking about what else she could possibly try to do to make this child’s life better, her eyes stopped on a small red paperback.

She smiled. She’d had very distant parents, and she’d wished so dearly, after she’d finished the book, that she’d read it as a child. It would have kept her far better company than the ridiculous and overwrought high fantasy novels had. Not that she disliked high fantasy as a genre, of course, just that… well, she realized much later that she’d been quite a bit too young for some of it.

Mariette pulled down the little red paperback, and flipped through the pages, savoring the smell of an old book that had been handled lovingly. The corners were a bit bent, and the spine had much of the color worn off where her hand tended to sit, and was cracked just a bit in the middle, but the ink in the pages were as dark as ever, and the words sprung up and at her as she skimmed.

Yes, she thought, a child in his situation could do with a bit of crooked advice.

.

“Mr. Potter, would you mind staying behind?” Ms. Jones asked.

Harry ducked underneath the jeers from Dudley and his friends, who he knew thought he must be in trouble. After all, they were only asked to stay after when they were in trouble, so it never would have occurred to any of them that he was being asked to stay after for any other reason.

They left, with the rest of the class, for the lunch room, to eat the lunches their parents packed them.

Ms. Jones set a paper bag on Harry’s desk, like she always did when she asked him to stay behind. She didn’t do it every day, of course. Only when she noticed that Harry hadn’t even brought an apple to eat for lunch.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, as he always did.

“Do you think you could hide something from your aunt and uncle, Mr. Potter?” Ms. Jones asked, instead of replying ‘you’re welcome’ like she always did.

“Huh?” Harry asked, and then jumped when something else was placed on his desk, next to the paper bag.

He looked at it, then up to Ms. Jones, who smiled faintly.

He read the title. “_Going… Postal_?”

“It’s a very good book,” Ms. Jones said. “It’s a favorite of mine, and I thought you’d like to have it, since I just bought a new copy. I’m trying to replace all my paperbacks with hardcovers, you see.”

Harry had no way of knowing she was lying, and took her words at face value. It was rare he was given anything, and though he wasn’t much of a reader, he would never be so rude as to reject a gift, or so stupid as to reject a gift from someone who had, so far, been nothing but kind to him.

“I- I can hide it,” he said. “I promise! Thank you, Ms. Jones.”

“You’re very welcome, Mr. Potter. Just be sure to eat your lunch before you begin reading, please. It’s always best to treat books respectfully, even the beaten up ones.”

He scarfs down his food, and when his hands have been wiped clean on his grungy pants, he cracks open the book and begins to read.

He’d opened it without expecting to like it. He’d begun to read with the expectation that he’d have to lie about finding it interesting, and then he was immediately intrigued by the story, and the wily-ness of Moist von Lipwig, and the calm, terrifying confidence of Lord Vetinari.

Ms. Jones interrupted his reading about halfway through chapter two.

“You’ll want to tuck that away now, dear,” she said kindly. “Are you enjoying it?”

“Very much so!” Harry answered immediately.

Ms. Jones smiled then, and said, “Well then. How about when you’re done with that one, I’ll send you off with the next book, hm?”

.

And so, one Harry James Potter was introduced to the influence of one Moist von Lipwig. Of course, Ms. Mariette Jones was only able to slip him the two other books before he was moved out of her sphere of influence, and it wouldn’t be until much later that he was able to acquire any more Discworld books, but three little books were plenty enough to change his future significantly.


	2. Chapter One: The Letter

“Get the mail, boy,” Uncle Vernon said.

“Yes sir,” Harry Potter said, and got up.

He’d learned it was best to not argue with Uncle Vernon. The man was as dense as anything, and it was just so much easier to get things out of him when he thought it was his idea in the first place, which meant, unfortunately, obeying him as much as possible.

Harry flipped through the mail, just to be nosy. He’d blackmailed Aunt Petunia once, when he’d caught a racy magazine in the mail, and was eager for the opportunity to do it again. Of course, as we know, Harry Potter did not find a racy magazine in the mail, but a letter addressed to him in emerald-green ink, written on yellowed parchment, and sealed with wax.

In this universe, he barely registered that the letter was addressed to him before it was tucked under his shirt and into his trousers, under his belt, hidden from view. His aunt and uncle would never let him have mail, let alone _weird_ mail, and especially not over breakfast. Opening mail over breakfast was for “normal” people.

So he handed off the rest of the mail to Uncle Vernon, and waited to be sent to his cupboard, which didn’t take long.

He waited until he the commotion of Uncle Vernon going to work and Aunt Petunia bundling Dudley off to who knew where died down, and then waited another few minutes just to be sure that Dudley hadn’t forgotten something and thrown a tantrum to go back for it. When he was certain that he was alone in the house and would be for the foreseeable future, he reached for his flashlight and lit it so he could read the only letter he’d ever received in his lifetime.

When he is done reading, he clicks the flashlight off and allows himself a moment to reel in shock. Was this a prank? Was this a scam? It was certainly wild enough to be a scam, but… it wasn’t flashy. People loved flashy scams, even in real life.

“Hope is a terrible thing,” Harry muttered to himself, and glanced at the trio of books tucked away into a corner, behind his school bag.

But, as Ms. Dearheart says, “Maybe not this time.”

Harry Potter has no idea how he’ll acquire an owl to reply, of course, but that will figure itself out, won’t it?

.

The next day, Aunt Petunia kicks him out of the house in the morning and tells him not to return until supper time, because it’s her turn to host the book club meeting this week, and she will not have him ruin anything with his freakishness.

“Yes, Aunt Petunia,” he said easily, “only, I think people will think it’s odd if you send me out all day without even anything to eat for lunch.”

Aunt Petunia squinted at him, suspicious.

“I just don’t want to get anyone into trouble, Aunt Petunia,” he said, blinking up at her as innocently as he could manage. “Least of all you, since you’re family.”

“Alright, alright…” she muttered, and dug into one of her pockets. “Here’s some change. If anyone asks, you blew the rest on something ridiculous, got it?”

“Got it,” Harry replied, and walked away from her with both the fancy letter and the reply tucked under his shirt, and enough change to at least buy a soda or a sandwich from a local shop clenched in his hand.

It was a quick walk to the nearby shop, where he bought a can of soda and a bag of pretzels, and as he reached over the counter to hand the shopkeeper the money, the shopkeeper winked at him and slipped a candy bar into the bag.

Harry beamed and thanked him.

The man shook his head and insisted that it was only right he treat such a good lad to something nice now and again, considering how much trouble he’d saved him!

About a year ago, the shopkeeper had gotten into a spot of trouble without knowing, and Harry, being a very nosy child, had overheard it. A woman had been playing a trick on him, like Moist used to do before he was given the Postmaster job. It was even the same one he talked about all the time, with the glass ring!

“Ma’am, that’s not a real diamond ring is it?” Harry had said. “Only, my Aunt Petunia has one, and that doesn’t look right. It’s all foggy-like.”

It hadn’t been foggy at all, but the woman had glared at him nastily, and her false tears had dried right up, and the shopkeeper had realized that he’d been so close to shelling out a hundred dollars for a ten dollar ring, thinking he could sell it for a thousand. And once he’d realized, he’d kicked her out and promptly handed Harry the biggest chocolate bar he had in stock.

As he left the shop, a few other kids asked if he was going to play Find the Lady for them today, which he did often do. It’s just that they were so terrible at it, and loose with their pocket money, and he was so hungry all the time. It didn’t seem to him like he was doing any harm, not like Moist had done before _Going Postal. _Besides, it’s not like he ever took all of their money. That would just be rude.

“Not today,” he said cheerily, without elaborating.

There were various groans of disappointment, but they let him go without too much more fuss, to his relief. Sometimes they’d try to convince him to do a game anyway, and he only sometimes gave in, but either way it was very annoying. Still, he had to be careful to not show his annoyance, because then they might not want to play Find the Lady at all, and his income would dry right on up.

He headed in the direction of the library. It wasn’t his favorite place to hang out, but it was quiet, and if he was lucky, the librarian would either know something about this Hogwarts place, or she’d finally have another Discworld book in for him to read. Of course, he didn’t expect too much, both because his luck was terrible and because someone had been opposing the introduction of any books to do with magic for several years. Harry suspected Aunt Petunia.

“Still can’t get your books approved, dear,” the librarian said when he approached her as she was shelving new books. “I can buy them for you, though, if you like. That offer still stands.”

“I haven’t got the money for that,” Harry replied, then, remembering the line Aunt Petunia had fed him, “I blew most of my allowance on candy again.”

The librarian made a “Tsk” noise with her teeth and shook her head. “If you want these books as bad as you say you do, you oughtta be saving that allowance. Anyway, anything else you need, or is that all, dear?”

Harry hesitated just long enough to get her attention and curiosity, then asked, “Have you ever heard of a place called, um, Hogwarts?”

Something flashed in her eyes, and it was either jealously or delight.

“You have!” he said. “So the letter isn’t a joke?”

“No,” the librarian said, then, slowly and precisely, like she was holding back from shouting or cursing, she added, “But I don’t know much about it. I’m what they call a squib, so my family, the buggars, tossed me out on my arse- uh, excuse me- as soon as they were allowed to. My sister went to Hogwarts, but I never got my letter.”

“So, erm…” Harry reached under his shirt and retrieved his letter. “Do you happen to know how I ‘send my reply via owl’? I’m not really sure what that means. Does owl stand for something?”

“Oh,” the librarian said, laughing a bit. “No, it means an owl. You know, the bird. If you look outside, I’ll bet there’s one lurking about. There usually is.”

“Oh, okay,” Harry said, and then started firing questions at her as fast as he could.

Smart people delighted in telling other people about what they knew, even if they didn’t like that they knew it. All he had to do was look interested and ask a few questions, and often, he’d get more information than he’d ever need.

Once again, he was proved right. The librarian quietly told him about the wizarding world; about quidditch, the customs, the silly clothes, potions, jinxes, charms, the Hogwarts Houses, politics, the weird prejudices, and that was just what he caught when he could force himself to pay attention all the way. Mostly, she complained about how badly she and people like her were treated.

“They even took away my name! I used to be called Isabela Selwyn, and now if I even try to say my name is-!” She mouthed the name Isabela Selwyn, and Harry saw her throat moving like it was making sounds, but none emerged. “See? Can’t even introduce myself right. I have to go by Isabelle Selvig, now.”

“That’s terrible,” Harry said. “What else should I know?”

“Well, I was kicked out nearing twenty years ago now, and I stopped getting the paper about fifteen years ago, so I might be a little outdated, but…”

Harry spent the rest of the afternoon listening to Ms. Selvig, as she begrudgingly told him to call her, and took notes on a notepad she gave him when he asked if he could write some of what she was saying down. Eventually, though, she began running out of things to say.

“I think the most recent thing I heard from the wizarding world was about that silly Dark Lord being defeated by a baby. The rumor I heard from the other squibs nearby was that there was some sort of mother’s love protection on the baby, or something. I’m not certain.” Then she looked at the clock and startled. “Oh, goodness me, it’s nearly closing time. You’d best get home, and send off your reply letter, dear. Feel free to come back anytime, of course, and I’ll tell you as much as I can, dear.”

“Thank you so much, Ms. Selvig,” Harry said.

“Of course, of course. I do hope you have better luck than I did in that world,” she said, sounding honest. “Who knows, maybe you’ll change some things, even. You seem like an ambitious boy.”

“I will,” he said, “It might take a while, but I will.”

Never promise the possible. Well, he wasn’t sure how possible it was based on what he’d heard about how ingrained some prejudices are in these people, so this had to count, right?

Ms. Selvig smiled at him a bit sadly. “That’s nice, dear. Now, run along. You don’t want to be late getting home, I imagine.”

He went, thinking furiously all the while. This was his chance! His chance to do something really big! Just like Moist von Lipvig changing the post office in Anhk-Morpork was big! He had no idea how he was going to do it, but he knew he needed to, not just because Ms. Selvig had been so nice to him over the years but also because it just wasn’t right, people being kicked out of their families for something they couldn’t control.

Harry stopped dead in the area between the two sets of doors in the library. The Dursleys weren’t going to like this whole magic school business. He’d known that since he got the letter, but it only just then occurred to him that they might boot him out on the street.

He popped back into the library and tugged on Ms. Selvig’s cardigan very gently, to get her attention again.

She started. “I thought I’d told you to run along.”

“Erm,” Harry said, “I dunno how to ask this, but, erm, if my aunt and uncle kick me out, what should I do?”

“Oh, dear,” Ms. Selvig said, blinking into the distance.

Harry stared at her hopefully.

“Well, hm… It’s not quite proper, but I’d rather be a bit improper than to leave a child out on the streets…” She motioned for the little notebook she’d given him, and when he handed it back to her, she scribbled something down with the pen she kept in her bun, then handed it back to him. “That’s my address, dear. You come right to me if they kick you out, understood?”

“Yes ma’am, thank you ma’am!” Harry said. “I’m going to go find an owl and mail this and go home now! Thank you!”

Once outside, he looked up at the nearby tree branches, and looked for the silhouette of an owl, though he wasn’t quite sure what that looked like. He didn’t see anything, and just as he was getting ready to give up, he heard a soft “woo, woo” from his left. He looked, and there was an owl serenely perched on the head of the stone lion guarding the library.

“Oh, hello,” Harry said, then hesitated. He wasn’t sure how to interact with a magical bird. “I, er, have a letter?”

The owl hooted again, and hopped down to a spot he could reach easier, stuck out one leg at him, and gave him the most expectant look he’d ever seen an animal give anyone.

He shrugged and fished out his reply letter, and yanked off a bit of loose string from his shirt to tie it firmly but gently onto the bird’s leg.

“Thank you,” he said to the bird. “I already ate my lunch, or I’d offer you some.”

The owl flew away without replying.

Harry shrugged and headed back home. The ball was out of his field and into whoever read the replies’ field. And, he reasoned, there was no need for Aunt Petunia or Uncle Vernon or even Dudley to know about any of this just yet, right? They’d just be upset.

.

A few hours later, a stern woman took a letter from an owl, and frowned at the paper the letter was written on.

“Muggleborns,” she muttered, not contemptuously but exasperatedly. “Such flimsy paper…”

_To whom it may concern:_

_I would love to accept your invitation to Hogwarts. However, my family will surely be opposed to such a place existing, and I can expect no help from them. I can acquire everything listed in your letter, but I don’t know where to purchase all of these things. If I could have just a little guidance, I’ll happily be there on September first. _

_Sincerely, _

_Harry Potter_

The stern woman blinked, not owlishly, but like a cat focusing on prey, then snarled and swept out of her office, a lion on the hunt.


End file.
